


a kingdom blanketed in white (lies)

by Morbane



Category: Star Stealing Prince
Genre: Childhood Memories, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gaslighting, Gen, Memory Alteration, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 18:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17048711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: Richard tries to guide Lina towards creating some good memories for Snowe.She delegates.





	a kingdom blanketed in white (lies)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightsMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/gifts).



> Thanks hugely to egelantier for some gentle and deft edits!

"But it _hurts_!"

Richard had already been alerted to trouble by the children's raised voices, and now he quickened his pace, reaching the edge of the ramparts and looking down to assess the situation.

Below, in the shelter of the castle walls, Snowe, Theodore, Joshua, and Trilby had clearly been making a snow fort. Trilby, whose shrill complaint had hastened Richard's steps, was upright and glaring at Joshua. Her arm was held out awkwardly in front of her. Richard breathed a sigh of relief that any injury was apparently minor - well, more of a hasty puff than a sigh. He allowed himself a moment to catch his breath, watching and listening.

"Calm down, Trilby," Snowe said authoritatively. 

"Yeah, calm down," her brother said, echoing Snowe's tone.

Snowe was accustomed to being obeyed, or at least agreed with. Richard had already had several careful conversations with him about the responsibilities of royalty. But Snowe hadn't yet worked out that the other citizens of Sabine responded to what he himself was feeling, rather than what he told them to feel, and Trilby did not calm down.

"You're getting blood all over the snow," Theodore said.

"Why should that _matter_?" Trilby wailed.

"Come on, Trilby," Snowe urged ineffectually. "Let me look at it, come on."

Grudgingly, Trilby held out her hand, enclosed in a mitten across which a stain was beginning to spread, and Snowe took it in his. Then - gold-green light washed over their joined hands.

Richard stared.

When had Snowe learned how to heal?

He turned and jogged down the steps. By the time he came out into the courtyard, the children's voices were at a normal tone again, grievances settled. Trilby was scooping up snow with the rest of them. "I heard yelling," Richard said. "Is everything all right?" Joshua looked at him disgruntledly, resenting the interruption to the game, and Trilby seemed to have almost forgotten already, but Theodore piped up, "Trilby grabbed some snow that had a stick in it and she got _stabbed_."

"I'd better have a look, then. Trilby, does that hurt?"

He checked her over. He hoped Snowe hadn't sealed any dirt or splinters in with the wound, but to all visible signs, he had healed her competently. "All right!" Richard said heartily. "Good work, Snowe." Snowe smiled, and the other children smiled with him. He left them to their activity. 

He mentioned it to Lina, several days later, at the end of presenting a positive report.

"Oh, and Snowe's making progress with his magic," he said casually. "I saw him cast a healing spell. I didn't know he could do that."

He waited, hoping that Lina would show that she'd already known. That kind of hope was a dying fire, but Richard still blew on its embers from time to time.

"He must have figured it out on his own," Lina said, smiling brittlely. "Nobody taught him." 

He knew she didn't know _that_ for sure, but he could not speak of Xiri unless she let him, and he privately agreed that it was unlikely the boy's demon was tutoring Snowe in that power.

"Well, there's only so far he can get on his own," Richard said, humoring her. And, before she could change the subject, he said, "He might turn out to be quite talented, if you taught him."

She narrowed her eyes, but he held her gaze, smile as guileless as he could make it. 

"It's a good age for it," he continued blithely. "It's been on my mind that he needs more activities away from the other children, now that he's growing up."

Lina turned aside to the window. "He's twelve now," she said, and he didn't miss the slight hesitation that her slow, measured tone was intended to mask. Nor did he point out that Snowe was very nearly thirteen.

"I wish..." Lina said, gathering herself together and turning back. "I wish we could have stopped him aging, too." He gave her a skeptical look, and, looking back from the window, she shot an irritated one back. "Not like that, Richard! I just wish he could have grown up in the kingdom we're trying to make, not this one. I wish he could have a childhood of sunlight, not snow. It wasn't meant to be his _legacy_."

There were all kinds of things Richard could have said to that - and many that he couldn't have said even if he wanted to. But the point that struck him most keenly was that Lina saw Snowe as a child still. 

He was barely a child, and if she wasn't careful - and when was she careful, about this? - she would miss the last chance to _be_ his mother while he still thought of her as one.

Trying for gentleness, he said, "He's here now, Lina, and so are you. You don't have to miss him when he's right in front of you."

Lina's smile was still crooked. "You're not wrong, Richard. All right. I'll teach him."

"Good," Richard said. "How about tomorrow?"

Another fractional hesitation. "The day after tomorrow."

He felt his throat tighten, and not just in tension. Though she was still smiling, Lina held the spell tight on him, and was warning him without words that he'd pushed this as far as he could go. 

He hadn't been going to say anything else. She didn't need to control him. There was no way to say that. But by now, it didn't even occur to her not to.

There was exactly one person left in the castle who would question her; Richard wished he _didn't_ wish it were possible for Snowe to trust her instead.

As Richard still did, because he had to.

Despite his misgivings, he trusted her too much. 

It was a month later when a guard's urgent call interrupted his inspection of a rotting window-frame at the top of the northern tower; Snowe, despite being mortal and not magic, was only a few steps behind the guard. Despite being rather banged up, too - there was a burn on his arm, and a tear of cloth at his knee that suggested a scrape or heavy bruise beneath it. "Snowe!" Richard said, alarmed. "What's wrong?"

"It's not me!" Snowe said urgently. For all his greater age, this reminded Richard of Theodore and Trilby's wails. (A passing thought - Snowe did spend time with all the villagers, but Richard clearly needed to make drastic rearrangements to Snowe's schedule, to shift his understanding of his peers to Mariland and Dominic, and others of the youngest among the adult villagers.) "It's Sharon!"

Richard hastened after him.

Despite Snowe's tumbled, anguished explanations, Sharon was not exactly at death's door. She looked up from a deep, blistered cut, already half-bandaged, wry ruefulness as well as pain in her expression. "Goodness, Snowe, you needn't have run," she said. Snowe ducked his head.

"I'll take care of it," Richard said, reaching over. "What happened?" he asked, before Sharon's look could warn him off. 

"I tried to heal it and I panicked," Snowe said.

Sharon bit her lip, and then said, very levelly, "So he burned me instead. Never a dull day around here." 

Snowe, eyes to the ground again, gave a bare nod.

It didn't take long for Richard to heal Sharon - and then to heal Snowe of his scrapes - but it did take a lot out of him. He was quiet, walking back to the castle with Snowe. He wanted to say something comforting, but there was still a piece of the puzzle missing. 

"I know it's my fault," Snowe said. "I know if I'd just studied with my mother..."

"Wait," Richard said. "What happened to your lessons?"

"The queen was busy, so she set me some anatomy to learn, and I didn't get through it before the next lesson," Snowe muttered, "So we went to the next, only that was..." He trailed off. Excuses, Richard thought. But not Snowe's.

Anger was building in him again, but it would have to wait. 

"Even if you were better at healing, Snowe, you still should have come to get an adult, with a cut like that," he said. "You don't have the experience yet. It's all right to ask for help." He was so tired he didn't want to stop, but he did, turning to Snowe and hugging him. He could feel Snowe's wet face press into his shirt.

"It's all right?"

"Yes, it's all right," Richard said, firmly and cheerfully. "I heal very well! You can check up on Sharon tomorrow and see for yourself."

Snowe laughed. "I can do her dishes until her arm's better!"

"That's a very good idea," Richard said.

To Lina, he said, "Snowe feels like he's failed you."

It would hardly be news to her, but he needed to pretend that it was.

She shrugged, frowning, and he steeled himself to expect his throat closing.

"He's vulnerable right now, Lina," he pleaded with her. "He forgets things sometimes, and it scares him. He's starting to realise he's getting older and it's messing with him that the other children aren't aging with him. He has episodes where I don't think he remembers whole days. He needs stability now. You can be the person he needs." He put all the feeling he could into his words, and waited.

She met his eyes. "Tell him I was," Lina said. "Tell him we had a good lesson together. If that's what you want! Make him remember _that_." Her defensive anger didn't frighten him as much as her defensive actions. If she was lashing out, she wasn't silencing him. Yet.

"I could do that," Richard said, very gently, very carefully, "but he'll expect another lesson." If only she could see that this was no solution.

Lina's eyes flashed. "Fine. I'll _teach_ him. Let's start again. Just tell him about what a good teacher I was the first time."

Richard was caught; he hadn't expected her promise. He didn't expect her to follow through. Part of her still wanted to, clearly - or perhaps she merely wanted to be the kind of person who cared. When the time came she would forget, again, that the rest of them were frozen, and Snowe was still moving, ever further away.


End file.
